The Pilgrim's Progress

John Bunyan was a Baptist preacher and author with little education but much vision and purpose.

Briefly imprisoned for preaching without a license, he is believed to have begun writing the most famous Christian allegory, The Pilgrim’s Progress, while in jail. The Pilgrim’s Progress was published in 1678 (Part I) and 1684 (Part II). Edited and annotated with the student reader in mind, this Norton Critical Edition is the indispensable guide to the language, allusions, and historical references of this challenging text. An unusually rich “Contexts” section is thematically organized in four sections: “Biographical,” “Geographical and Visual,” “Theological and Literary,” and “Abridgements and Adaptation,” and includes eleven essential visuals. “Criticism” collects twenty major essays spanning two hundred years of thinking and writing about The Pilgrim’s Progress, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, George Bernard Shaw, F. R. Leavis, Dorothy Van Ghent, J. Paul Hunter, Stanley Fish, Barbara A. Johnson, and Cynthia Wall, among others.

GEOGRAPHICAL AND VISUAL

“A Plan of the Road from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City” (c.1780)

“House Beautiful,” from the X edition (17xx), engraving by J. Sturt

“Doubting Castle,” from the X edition (17xx), engraving by J. Sturt

“Christiana and her Children at Supper in the Interpreter’s House,” from the X edition (17xx), engraving by J. Sturt

“Christian and Apollyon,” from 19thC chapbook

“Faithful’s martyrdom and Giant Despair,” from 19thC chapbook

“Palace Beautiful,” from 19thC chapbook

Emily A. Rudd, Dramatised Scenes from “The Pilgrim’s Progress” (1912)

THEOLOGICAL AND LITERARY

John Foxe, from Actes and Monuments (The Book of Martyrs), 1563, 1641, 1741

Arthur Dent, from The Plaine Mans Path-way to Heaven (1601)

Lewis Bayly, from The Practice of Piety (1612)

John Bunyan, from The Doctrine of Law and Grace Unfolded (1659)

Robert Boyle, from Occasional Reflections (1665; 1669), “A Discourse Touching Occasional Meditations”; “Upon his manner of giving Meat to his Dog”; “Upon his Paring of a rare Summer-Apple”; “Upon hearing of a Lute first tun’d, and then excellently play’d on.” [8]

Joseph Hall, from Occasionall Meditations (1630): “On a fair prospect”; “Vpon occasion of a Spider in his Window”; “Vpon the sight of a Crow pulling off wooll from the backe of a Sheepe”; “Vpon the sight of two Snayles”; “Vpon Herbes dryed”; “Vpon the sight of Grapes”; “Vpon the sight of Tulipaes and Marygolds, &c. in his Garden.”

John Bunyan, from A Book for Boys and Girls (1686)

ABRIDGEMENTS AND ADAPTATIONS

S. M., The Heavenly Passenger: or, The Pilgrims Progress, From this World, to that which is to come. Deliver’d under the Similitude of a Dream... Newly done into Verse (1687)

Thomas Sherman, from The Second Part of the Pilgrim’s Progress (1682)

John Wesley, The Pilgrim’s Progress ... Abridg’d by John Wesley (1741, 5th ed.)

The Christian Pilgrim: Containing an Account of the Wonderful Adventures and Miraculous Escapes of a Christian, in his Travels from the Land of Destruction to the New Jerusalem (Vermont, 1811)

Joshua Gilpin, from The Pilgrim’s Progress ... by John Bunyan. A new and corrected Edition, in which the phraseology of the Author is somewhat improved, some of his obscurities elucidated, and some of his redundancies done away (1811)